the man who was a butterfly
by nebulia
Summary: -It's a dream. It's all a dream.- Watanuki loses his balance. Strange onesided Doumeki/Watanuki for the most part.
1. part one

**Title**: the man who was a butterfly 

**Fandom**: xxxHOLiC 

**Characters:** Doumeki, Watanuki (onsided Doumeki/Watanuki) 

**Rating**: PG-ish? 

**Summary**: "Your life—that's a dream. This is a dream, a dream in a dream." Watanuki loses his balance. 

**Warnings**: a) Doumeki is OOC. For a reason. Which should be kind of obvious. Doumeki is very very sad and not at all hiding anything right now. And Watanuki's kind of out of it. But mostly because he's really unnerved.

b) This takes place sometime in the not-so-distant future. I'm keeping things vague because I obviously don't know what will happen. However, (SPOILERS for TRC 181) I know that part of what Watanuki 'did' was make the wish for Syaoran&Co, and when he lost his memories, this is sort of what happened. A little bit AU, maybe. I dunno.

c) The title comes from a story referenced by Haruka in the manga--the story of Chinese philospher Chuang-tzu, who said, "One night I dreamt I was a butterfly, and now I do not know if I am a butterfly dreaming I am Chuang-tzu, or Chuang-tzu dreaming I was a butterfly." That all being said, fic:

* * *

_the man who was a butterfly_

For a long moment, Watanuki isn't sure if he's dreaming or not. He's standing by the same porch he always sits one when talking to Haruka-san, the one outside Yuuko-san's house, but the person sitting there certainly isn't Haruka-san. Because he's not smoking, not smiling, and not looking at him.

No, _this_ Doumeki is much more familiar, and drinking tea, and staring out into space. He's not smiling, but his face isn't that usual blank one, either. Instead, it's got this hopeless, empty look to it, haunted, almost. Doumeki might be his rival, but that look on his face is so heartbreaking that Watanuki can hardly stand it. Doumeki isn't supposed to look like that, dammit!

Doumeki doesn't look towards him, but he knows he's there, because suddenly he says, "Oi" in this very quiet voice.

Watanuki nearly snaps, 'My name isn't 'oi,' you big lug!' but he can't do it, he _just can't,_ because Doumeki looks like he might break into pieces if someone yells at him.

Instead he goes to sit by him. "Is this a dream?" he asks.

Doumeki looks at him for a long moment, and on the wind, Watanuki suddenly hears a familiar whisper—Yuuko, serious for once: _you've got to tell him, Doumeki-kun._

Doumeki nods. "Yeah," he says. "Yeah. It all is. It's all a dream."

* * *

Watanuki doesn't get it.

He looks at Doumeki and says, "Of course. What else would it be, now that you say it's a dream? It's not like the porch is a dream and the tree isn't."

Doumeki's face falls, if it can fall any farther. "I—" he says, and stops. "I didn't want to say it. That's not—not what I mean."

Watanuki frowns.

"Your life—that's a dream. This is a dream, a dream in a dream."

"What?" Watanuki asks.

"I'm a dream. Kunogi's a dream. Kohane-chan—she's a dream. Your parents aren't dead, you don't see spirits. It was all a dream. Yuuko-san did it—she says there was something you had to do, in this dream, something you couldn't do in real life. And you did it, but I don't know what it was."

Watanuki isn't sure he knows what it was, either.

"Is Yuuko-san a dream?" he asks finally.

Doumeki drinks his tea, as if he can't do anything else, as if he's gathering strength to speak, and says, "No."

"Huh?"

"Yuuko-san exists in all dimensions. A dream is simply another dimension, and so, Yuuko-san exists." Watanuki doesn't know what to think. Doumeki has to be telling the truth, because his face is still heartbroken and his eyes are sad, so, so sad. Now, he looks at Watanuki constantly, desperately, as if he's looking at him for the very last time.

And suddenly there's a shock of horror, because Doumeki said, _I'm a dream. Kunogi's a dream. Kohane-chan's a dream—_ "You mean," he says, horrified, "You mean you don't exist? You're just…a figment of my imagination?" _Or worse,_ he thinks, _a figment of Yuuko-san's imagination._

Doumeki shrugs helplessly. "Maybe I exist. But the Doumeki you know—me—he no longer exists outside of you own mind. He never did." He chuckles a little bit, bitterly.

Watanuki has never heard Doumeki laugh before, and he never wants to hear it again, if it's always bitter and awful like that. "Nothing I know is real," he whispers.

Doumeki laughs again, not in reaction to Watanuki's comment, but more as though he's been lost in his own thoughts. "God," he says, staring at the sky, blinking furiously, and Watanuki looks at him. "I don't even exist, so how did I manage to fall in love with you?"

Watanuki freezes. 

_Ohmygod._

Doumeki sets down the tea and, setting his elbows on his knees, buries his face in his hands. "You're going to wake up, Watanuki," he says finally. "Soon. And we'll all cease to exist. Except you. And Yuuko-san."

Watanuki looks at him, and finally, touches his shoulder. "Doumeki," he says, unsure. "Doumeki—I'm sorry. I don't know—did you know?"

Doumeki shrugs. "Maybe. I don't know." He looks up at Watanuki. "I don't know anything much now. You're going to wake up." As if that explains anything, and Watanuki feels old familiar irritation lurking at him and wants to laugh at how odd everything--even that--feels.

The whole world seems fuzzy, except the porch and Doumeki, who is staring at him with those haunted eyes. "Watanuki. Watanuki, please, can I—" and he breaks off but Watanuki knows what he wants—because _ohgod, this is _his_ dream, after all_—and nods.

Doumeki leans closer to him, and Watanuki closes his eyes, because he can't stand the look on Doumeki's face anymore. A soft finger touches his cheek, and then hands cup his face and a forehead presses against his own. "Kimihiro," Doumeki whispers, and then the hands and forehead are gone and he opens his eyes and Doumeki is standing on the other side of the yard, holding his bow, drawn.

"Kimihiro," he says again. "Kimihiro, wake up."

He lets the bowstring go.

* * *

Watanuki Kimihiro wakes up. Wakes up, to the blueblueblue eyes and gentle smile of his mother's face, in a bedroom that wasn't his, and in his head, he remembers two lifetimes—one, fuzzy and dreamlike, where he was an orphan who saw evil creatures and one, clear as a bell, when he lived with his parents and cooks and gets mediocre grades at best.

And his heart burns.


	2. part two

**fandom**:xxxholic

**title**: the man who was a butterfly, part 2/4 

**summary:** "this is a dream. it's all a dream." Watanuki loses his balance. 

**notes**: Though I'm exceedingly fond of my friend celesia's crack theory that Watanuki's parents are Kyle and Xing Huo...I thought that would add unecessary complication. XP So his parents are normal people. Whatever. Anyway, here's part two.

* * *

His mother does not look ten years older than the last time he saw her—but then, he only saw her yesterday, didn't he?

She has aged beautifully, regardless, still looking like she's in her mid-twenties when she's actually nearly forty.

"You must have been very tired last night, Kimihiro," she says in her musical voice. "You slept for nearly eighteen hours. I was glad it was a Sunday."

Watanuki sits up. "I had a dream," he says dazedly, finding his glasses and shoving them on his face. "A really, really _real_ dream. I—it was so _real, _and it feels—but now, it just feels like a dream. I remember it, all of it—but it's fuzzy." He catches his face in the mirror across from his bed. It's the same, save for the two blue eyes behind his glasses. Not blue and gold. Just blue.

His mother sits down on the futon. "Was it bad?"

And that, Watanuki thinks, is the crux of the issue—was it bad? His parents were dead. He was haunted by spirits. For eight years, he was alone. And then—

And then he had a family, a little odd one—Yuuko-san and Mokona and Moro and Maru and Doumeki and Himawari-chan and Tanpopo and Mugetsu and Kohane-chan—a family.

And they don't exist.

"It was happy," he says finally, "and sad, and lonely—and _full."_ He wants to cry.

His mother gathers him in a hug. "It's okay, Kimi-chan," she whispers. "It's okay."

He feels better automatically, because he has always felt better when his mother has comforted him, and kisses her cheek. She smiles at him.

"It's too late for breakfast," she says, eyes laughing, "But how about lunch? I called Ichihara-san and said you wouldn't be in until the afternoon, and she said it was perfectly understandable—you must have been tired at work yesterday—"

And then it hits him. "Yuuko-san!" he yells and jumps out of bed, ushering his mother out of his room. "I'll be right out," he calls, washing his face and dressing and brushing his teeth and he rushes out and grabs two of the fried onigiri his father made this morning. His father has not aged as well as his mother, graying hair and lined face, but he smiles that old happy smile and says, "Good morning, Kimihiro," and Watanuki waves at him and yells through a mouthful of onigiri, "I've got to talk to Yuuko-san!"

And he's out the door.

* * *

He doesn't live in the same apartment, but he knows the way to Yuuko-san's shop regardless. It's in the exact same place, and he rushes in the door and is greeted by Mokona flying into him. "Watanuki-spelled-as-April-first!" the black thing yells.

"Yuuko-san!" Watanuki yells, and the woman is standing on the porch.

"Good morning, Watanuki-kun," she says smoothly. She sips delicately from the cup of sake in her hand. Her eyes are flashing with something that is not quite amusement and not quite sadness. Stepping off the porch, she asks, "Did you sleep well?"

Watanuki's energy is gone.

And he remembers more things: getting the job because he stumbled upon the shop with a wish not even he knew, and the day before—only twenty hours ago—the visit from Syaoran and the unconscious girl and the two tall men, one light, one dark. And the wish he made, even though he had no idea why he was making it, why he felt so close to Syaoran: _When the girl leaves them, I want you to tell them where she is. _

"The cost will be your memories," Yuuko-san said, and Watanuki had agreed, and then he had felt so, so tired and now—

Now he thinks upon the dream and it is no longer fuzzy but memorable but broken, in bits and pieces, like a normal dream; the dream is fading and he thinks, _my memories!_ before he can stop himself.

He is trembling. He can't stop shaking, his knees are weak, he feels tears burning in his eyes. He lets himself slide to the ground, trying hard not to cry. Because there is so little left now.

"Are they even real, Yuuko-san?"

Yuuko sighs. "They're quite real, Watanuki-kun, but if you met them—they are not the same people."

It doesn't matter. Not at all. He _has_ to find them. He stands and grabs Yuuko's shoulders. "_Where are they_?"

Yuuko touches his hands and they drop to his side and she says, "You will not be able to pay that price, Watanuki Kimihiro."

He backs away. _They are lost to you,_ something in his mind whispers. _They are lost to you forever._

If his heart wasn't already broken, it would break now.

But Yuuko continues. "If you want to find them, you will have to look for them."

It is just another dream now, vague and only a few things standing out. He cannot remember the exact order of their happening, or Kohane-chan's surname, or Doumeki's grandfather's name, or where he lived, or how his parents died. Just little things, here and there, things he cannot connect. 

_A dream, _he thinks, _oh god it was a dream. _

He'll find them. He will. "What can you tell me?" he asks. He needs to know what she will say.

"You have to guess."

And Watanuki knows right away that this is not some whim of Yuuko's, but something he has to do because of whatever stupid rules she lives by. But he knows what he wants to ask. Because it sounds important to him, and he doesn't know why.

"One thing, then." He finally meets Yuuko's red eyes, glad they haven't changed, because everything else has. "Does Doumeki still live in Tokyo?"

Yuuko smiles for real, setting her cup on the porch, and then claps her hands gleefully. "Oh, you have learned, Watanuki-kun!" She steps off the porch to touch his cheek. "That was a perfect question for finding those whom you seek, and the only one you could afford. Now you must go home."

She does not say the answer, but he knows what it is.

She pushes him out the door before he can ask the price and when he turns he can no longer see the shop behind him.

Yuuko has vanished from his life.

He has no one left.

* * *

He knows what to do, the only thing he can do.

He looks.


	3. part three

**fandom**:xxxholic 

**title**: the man who was a butterfly, part 3/3

**summary:** "he is in love with a boy he's never met." Doumeki's life turns upside-down. 

**notes**: Right. So, I had these three parts--one from Himawari's POV, one from Doumeki's, and one in third person to finish it out.

AND THEY WEREN'T WORKING. And they weren't working and I wasn't happy with them AT ALL and it was just ugh. And I was walking dogs at work last night (I work at a vet clinic), and I got this IDEA, and it _worked_, and I wrote this in one sitting when I got home. So this replaces those three. It's not what I was expecting, at all, and it's way more DoumekiWatanuki than I expected it to be (or, at least, this convoluted onesided DoumekiWatanuki thing I've got going on), and I'm not pleased with a lot of the syntax in here, but I like it infinitely better than what I had previously. There's been a slight edit to the previous chapter; originally, Watanuki asked if Doumeki still did archery, because he was going to meet Himawari and Doumeki at an archery tournament. Now that that's been nixed, however, I changed it to Watanuki asking if Doumeki lives in Tokyo, which is a fairly reasonable question, given that Watanuki has no clue where Doumeki is in the world.

A few additional notes: These are not really the same Doumeki, Himawari and Kohane (though she's only mentioned by name) as in true xxxHOLiC. They're slightly different, so they (or really, just Doumeki) is out of character a little, and I did that on purpose (and damn it, it was hard).

My Doumeki's childhood illness is severe asthma--I had two cousins with unbelievably bad asthma in elementary school, going into junior high, bad enough that they were definitely what you would call sickly (for those of you who know asthma, they both carried not only a rescue inhaler everywhere, but also at least two Epi-pens, and I saw both of them need to actually use one several times throughout my childhood--also, they both used a nebulizer at least twice a day). However, both--one in eighth grade and the other just graduated--are not even using a rescue inhaler anymore, and are very active boys. So I decided to make Doumeki an asthmatic.

Ummm, yeah.

Now that that unbelievably long, convoluted note is done, here's the actual story.

* * *

This afternoon, Doumeki Shizuka is dozing against a sakura tree in the yard.

Usually he doesn't take naps, but last night he was up late with his grandfather, helping him prepare for a wedding that had taken place this morning, and Doumeki's tired. So, when chores are done and lunch is eaten and Grandfather has gone to tend to some shrine management, Doumeki decides it's time for a nap.

He dreams of a boy whom he loves more than he's ever loved anyone in his entire life.

He dreams that the boy does not love him back.

In his dream, he is quieter, more blunt, always honest. Once Doumeki was silent and blunt, but he had been a kid then, so severely asthmatic he could hardly walk without wheezing, in a girl's kimono with Epi-pens and a rescue inhaler tucked in the obi and a nebulizer with his name on it in the nurse's office.

He has since grown out of it some—or, at least, he understands that what he thinks needs to be said is not what other people need him to say.

They need him to say _more. _

(He still rarely talks; however, when he does, it is respectful and polite, even to his best friend and next-door neighbor, Kunogi, even to his grandfather, the only other person he truly considers a friend. He rarely makes the blunt, dry comments he made—albeit rarely—as a child, that he made—infrequently—in the dream. No, those stay in his head now.)

In his dream, his grandfather dies when he is eleven, before Doumeki has learned to manipulate people in that subtle way Grandfather is so good at. In his dream, he can be manipulative, but it's either unintentional or blatantly obvious, and happens only rarely. In his dream, what you see is what you get, because that Doumeki had never learned—or perhaps never cared—that he could be rather abrasive.

In his dream, a lot of things go wrong. A lot of things are strange. Even before he wakes up and forgets, as always happens when he dreams, the facts change.

The only constant is the boy. Is the love he feels for the boy.

When he wakes up, Ichihara-san is standing at the temple gates.

* * *

For years, Ichihara-san has come every single week to the temple to pray. She missed once, when he was thirteen, and when he asked why, she'd said that she was making gods.

Whatever that meant.

Kunogi says that Ichihara-san has the fashion sense of a supermodel on mind-altering drugs. Doumeki doesn't know anything about supermodels, but it's become something of a game to his grandfather and him to guess what she'll wear next.

Today she's dressed in something…unbelievably elaborate, complete with a headpiece that doesn't look like it would stay in her hair without magic. She is smiling, a sad _I know something_ smile.

He wakes up slowly, eyes drifting open. He notices Ichihara-san before he remembers his dream, with far more clarity than he's ever remembered a dream. But now it's not even so much a dream, or even like watching a movie, as it seems to be a memory.

He wakes up still in love with the boy. It doesn't matter if he's never met him in real life, if in the dream he is not the same Doumeki Shizuka, but some warped form of himself, but when he is no longer dreaming, when he is in his real life and already that momentary interlude created by his mind is fading, he is still in love with the boy. Wherever he is. _Whoever_ he is. Potentially, the boy doesn't even exist. It was a _dream— _

"It wasn't a dream," Ichihara-san says as she approaches him. She offers a delicate hand to help him to his feet and leads him over to the porch, where they sit. "Well…not your dream, at any rate."

"What," Doumeki says blankly, "Are you talking about?"

"Your dream, about the boy—his name is Watanuki Kimihiro, by the way—" and he'll never forget that name, _never_ "—is a dream, but not yours. It was his."

Okay.

Ichihara-san is odd. Doumeki knows this. Grandfather has said many times, a knowing smile on his face, that Ichihara-san is interesting, is powerful, but that Doumeki must speak to her to get any more information.

So right now, he thinks it most prudent to take everything she says at face value and let her explain herself.

"I," Ichihara-san says, "Grant wishes for a living."

Doumeki blinks.

"All wishes," she adds, "If you can pay the equivalent price—not necessarily money. In fact, the price is rarely, if ever, money. The greater the wish, the more difficult it is to grant, the greater the price, the greater the cost to yourself."

Doumeki watches her steadily, lets her keep talking. "I had a part-timer, for nearly a year, a boy who cared deeply for everyone he knew, though he tried not to show it. One day—yesterday—four people came from another dimension, from several other dimensions, all requesting my help."

"Dimensions," Doumeki says. "As in, other worlds?"

"Yes," Ichihara-san says, "As in other worlds. There are other worlds, other places so different from this world you can't imagine it. But, also as in dreams. Every dream is another dimension, another world. Sometimes they are brief, fleeting moments, easily and quickly forgotten, but other times, they become full, realized worlds on their own."

"Where are you going with this, Ichihara-san?" "These four world-travelers paid heavy prices to have their wishes granted. And my part-timer, cared about them, worried about them, had a wish for them.

"What the wish was is not important. What is important is the price he paid—his memories."

Doumeki's eyes widen. _His memories? All of them?_ This price—he knows that it is a heavy one, that it must be an enormous cost. What kind of a person would pay such a price?

He thinks of his dream. In his dream—vague but not forgotten—the boy fell. Fell a long way, and would have died, but he and Kunogi paid to heal him.

Kunogi received his scars. But Doumeki himself gave up the amount of blood the boy had lost, gave up so much blood that he could have died. And he knew it, knew it when he had paid such a price.

But he had loved Watanuki Kimihiro. And Watanuki Kimihiro had not even known those people— He wonders at his own wonder. Somewhere within himself, in the part of him that lived in the dream, he knows that Watanuki Kimihiro cares for everyone, but the part of him--the most of him--that does not know who Watanuki Kimihiro cannot help but be amazed at the depth of the boy's love. 

_Could he love me like that?_

Something within him aches.

Ichihara-san smiles sadly. "He dreamt himself a life, a life so sad, so happy, so _full_ that it outshone his own life. No, it wasn't perfect. The dream-life was much darker, much worse for him than his own life is. But it was still _more._"

She is staring at Doumeki, her eyes so intense that he cannot look away. He's beginning to piece things together, he thinks, but he can't understand why _he_ is involved—

"And eventually he woke up."

"Why?"

"Time runs differently in different worlds—though it took the travelers months to complete, only a few hours passed here. And because the four world-travelers completed their task, the price was paid. "

"But," Doumeki says, "You said the price was his memories."

"It is," Ichihara-san says. Her eyes are serious and it's troubling, because while she is enigmatic, she is always cheerful, more often than not having a few cups of sake with Grandfather after praying when she comes over. "But now his life—to him—was in that dream. And dreams fade; erode—so quickly, they are forgotten. So he woke up, and now he's forgotten that other world, which was so much more a _life_ than this one. Now, this reality—it's empty to him, meaningless, and remembering this meaningless life is almost worse than remembering nothing at all. He remembers barely anything about what happened in that dream, in that other life, only a few things. Like you."

"I don't understand," he says quietly. His heart is pounding, something like joy running through his veins because Watanuki Kimihiro _remembers him,_ and he doesn't understand why he is so happy, why he dreamed Watanuki Kimihiro's dream, why he is even here, talking to Ichihara-san.

"Hitsuzen," the woman says, almost dreamily. "You, Kunogi, Kohane, myself—we are all connected to that boy through hitsuzen and nothing else. It is inevitable that you should meet him, whether in dreams or in life." 

_Kohane? Kunogi's little sister?_ "So why do I know this now?" he asks.

"Because those four world-travelers, grateful to a boy who barely knew them, who cared enough to give up his past for them, wished that he could be happy. And though they had given up much for their quest, they paid a price—not a large one, but it was enough for this."

She stands, finished, suddenly satisfied, and Doumeki is sitting there, eyes wide. His head is spinning with this sudden new influx of information, information he really has no reason _not_ to believe, because while little of it makes sense, Grandfather has always said that hitsuzen is not supposed to make sense.

"So what do I do now?" he asks finally. It's the only question he can ask, he thinks, now that his life is not the same as it was. There is a full space inside of him, a space he didn't even know existed before, let alone that it had been empty. In itself, that fullness is enough, almost.

(But not quite.

In his dream, he would have let Watanuki Kimihiro do anything as long as he let Doumeki love him, and yet, something held him back from even telling the boy about his love. Instead, he had settled for being near him. It hurt, pain clenching around his heart, it burned but—_god,_ it was so wonderful to see him, to hear him, to have that face, that voice, those emotions focused on him—)

He wants to see Watanuki Kimihiro.

"You wait," Ichihara-san says. "He'll find you."

His heart pounds.

* * *

The day is nearly done when he hears someone enter the shrine, steps hesitant but familiar. Listens as they round the corner to the porch—

"Hello—_ah!_"

Doumeki Shizuka looks up.


	4. epilogue: holes

**fandom**: xxxHOLiC

**title**: holes

**summary:** The real world is...way too real for Watanuki to be comfortable in.

**warnings/notes**: SAP. MASSIVE AMOUNTS OF SAP. But this Doumeki is not quite holic!Doumeki, and Watanuki talks his own sappiness away, so I hope you'll forgive me for the MASSIVE AMOUNTS OF SAP AND OOC.

Also, sequel to "the man who was a butterfly," so it will not make sense and everyone will be OOC unless you read those first. Holic!Doumeki showed up one day and (in a lot fewer words) was like, "Dude. You pretty much kill me off and then you leave my alter-ego hanging? I CANNOT FORGIVE."

So I wrote this. 2600+ words. 

* * *

_holes_

He meets Watanuki Kimihiro's parents when he carries the boy, sleeping, home when it was nearly midnight. He'd had to look their address up in the phone book.

Even asleep, his face is pale and exhausted, dark circles underneath his eyes. Once he mutters, "I have to find them," but for most of the way to his house, he's still.

And truthfully, he's getting a little bit heavy.

Watanuki's parents are naturally worried sick and they like him immensely, and he likes them just as immensely; his mother has a gentle smile and is beautiful and has Watanuki's eyes, and his father's hair is graying and all over the place and he has wire-rimed glasses and is so very, very friendly.

He invites them to dinner.

And of course, when Watanuki-san discovers that dinner is take-out, he stands up and declares that it simply will not do and all four Doumekis sigh, Doumeki's mother dejectedly, and the other three less a sigh and more a loud exhale and finally Doumeki (Shizuka, that is) says, "You could cook if you wanted to."

Watanuki-san does.

It's very, very good, and when it's complimented—every time—Watanuki (the son) looks smug and triumphant straight at Doumeki, who just gets another helping of rice. And then his eyes go confused, as though he doesn't understand why he is so smug to begin with, and then dark.

But it's a satisfying arrangement. Watanuki-san is prone to sudden dramatic speeches about the honor and glory of cooking, and occasionally his wife has an angry glare that rivals her son's, and Haruka-san—Doumeki's grandfather, who absolutely refuses to be called anything but Haruka-san (unless, of course, you're Doumeki, and then you can call him grandpa)—smokes and smiles and offers bits and pieces, and Doumeki's father is polite and decent and a salaryman and his mother is prone to dramatic histrionics that involve not yelling or waving of arms but sighs and eyerolls and the occasional teary face.

Of course Watanuki is never that dramatic, and it's funny to watch Doumeki's mother sigh dramatically when Doumeki steals the last piece of meat from the hotpot.

Doumeki goes the entire dinner without speaking, of course, and Watanuki watches, everything so unfamiliar and odd but he sort of likes it.

They plan dinner again.

Next Sunday, the neighbors join them and Watanuki-san relishes in cooking for a crowd and Watanuki meets Himawari-san, someone he knows was in the life but he doesn't know who, and Kohane-chan, who is the same way, and their parents, and Himawari-san calls Doumeki Shizuka-kun and he calls her Kunogi which is _so_ familiar and for some reason they hit it off, the three of them, in as much as they can hit it off.

Himawari-san is cheerful, too, and funny, good with her words. She's pretty, and she and Watanuki get along well, and if he didn't feel so disoriented, he could've easily had a crush on her. But he still feels as though he has lived a life that wasn't his, and sometimes he just feels so _alone—_

He is suddenly surrounded by happy, expressive people and then there's _Doumeki_ and those last five minutes of the dream are so, so clear to him, even if he remembers _nothing_ else, and he wonders if Doumeki's happy. Wonders if there's a little bit of that dream Doumeki in him, and if so, how—

He knows Doumeki remembers the dream. They've never spoke of it but that day when Watanuki came to the shrine knowing only that he was looking for Doumeki...somebody, it started with an 's' and half in tears because he couldn't remember and then he found him.

_I'm Watanuki Kimihi— _

_I know. I'm Doumeki Shizuka._

And Watanuki wanted to say _I know_ to that because Doumeki was asking for it, just _asking for it,_ but he _hadn't_ known. And then he'd looked at Doumeki, suddenly exhausted, and he knews that even Doumeki knew that.

And well, Doumeki gets on his nerves seven times out of ten, and he doesn't mind really—he yells and shouts, yes, and Doumeki sticks his pinkies in his ears and Himawari-san smiles and they plan to meet for tea during the week, since they go to separate schools.

Usually tea is at Watanuki's house, after school, and he cooks for them too, while his parents are at work, and Doumeki likes Watanuki's own cooking even better than his father's, and when he compliments him, the second time Watanuki cooks, there's this sudden look in his eyes before he says, _I like your cooking, Watanuki, _and he _knows_ Doumeki remembers more than he does, always has known it, and so that has importance that Watanuki can't see.

It hurts.

One day he realizes that they are friends, Watanuki and Doumeki and Himawari-san and that's just right, especially when Himawari-san turns to Himawari-chan and Watanuki-kun to Kimihiro-kun and, well, Doumeki just calls everyone by their last names, that's no different. But they are also friends, Watanuki and Doumeki, because sometimes Himawari-chan has student council and can't come and so those days at tea there is less civil conversation and more shouting and silence and hidden soft smiles and sometimes discussions of things like Yuuko and spirits and sake and Watanuki thinks that it's too comfortable, too right.

And sometimes Doumeki looks at him and it's this space between warm and hot and sad and _ohgod,_ when he looks like that Watanuki can't think straight and he doesn't know whether it's guilt or something else.

_I don't even exist, so how did I manage to fall in love with you? _

The words haunt him, and he doesn't know why—doesn't know how he feels or what it's called and then—

And then he runs into Yuuko and she asks how it's been and he lights up with a sudden rush of happiness that he doesn't really seem to actually _feel_ and says, "I found them!" _even if I don't know who them are anymore,_ he doesn't say, but Yuuko, of course, hears it.

"But you know one of them, right?"

Usually the things he doesn't say that Yuuko hears are implied, _I know what you're not saying_ and _I know you know_ and then together _what are you gonna do about it?_

"But," he begins, "I don't know him. I knew him exactly for five minutes and then I woke up and all he told me was that it was a dream and that he—" _loved me._

"And?"

"He's not the same! He said so! You said so! He—"

Yuuko lifts an eyebrow. "You assume a lot, Watanuki-kun." She touches his head. "Does it even matter if he was different then? Doumeki has come to terms with himself, but why should it even _matter_ to you? You don't remember it."

"Are you playing the devil's advocate? Or trying to tell me something? _Why can't you just say what you mean?"_ He waves his arms.

Yuuko smiles her sneaky-cat smile. "Hurry up or you'll be late for tea. It'd be unseemly for Doumeki-kun to show up when you're not there." She turns around, gracefully walking away from him.

_"Hey!_ Get back here!" But by the time he finishes shouting, Yuuko, despite her enormous height and supermodel-on-drugs fashion sense (according to Himawari-chan), has vanished into the crowd.

This afternoon, when Doumeki rings the doorbell and Watanuki, still contemplating what the hell Yuuko was even talking about, goes to open it, he is startled. Doumeki looks perfectly normal, kyudo bag slung over one shoulder, schoolbag in hand, uniform all nice and neat, hair combed and a little damp from a shower after practice.

But there's just this little something, and Watanuki doesn't know what—

Perfectly normal. The same way he shows up every single afternoon. Watanuki lets him in with a "hello, you jerk," and Doumeki sets down his bags and kicks off his shoes and turns to Watanuki.

"I love you," Doumeki says.

"D-don't—don't just _say_ it like that!" Watanuki shrieks and then—"_What?"_

"You heard me."

"Yeah. But—" And for the first time he wonders what it feels like to love someone whom you barely know, someone who—who just _dreamed_ you, a different you, even, and now you love him and Watanuki doesn't think he'd be able to handle it. He's known that—knew that the other Doumeki loved him, and he realizes—though neither of them ever said anything—that he knew, at least a little, that this Doumeki, the _real_ Doumeki, loved him too.

He wonders what it felt like, waking up in love with someone whom you don't even know.

He realizes he's staring at Doumeki with his mouth hanging open. Snapping it shut, he says, "So. It was just…you woke up after dreaming my dream and then—"

"I loved you. Love you."

"And if I don't—"

"It's okay." The words come out almost too fast and then Doumeki, almost flustered but Watanuki doesn't think Doumeki could ever pull off flustered and actually, you know, _be_ flustered, looks down. His cheeks are slightly darker than normal.

"What?" The words sink in—_it's okay_—and Watanuki doesn't get it. Because while his own feelings towards Doumeki are unpleasantly ambiguous, Doumeki _knows_ he loves Watanuki. And Doumeki _knows_ that Watanuki potentially doesn't love him back. And it's okay? Shouldn't Doumeki be either trying to get Watanuki to love him of suddenly hating him?

"I—" Doumeki pauses, looks at Watanuki, and then away. "You don't have—you don't have to do anything," he says quietly, but his voice is calm and even, just as it always is. His eyes are staring down at the floor. "You don't have to love me or anything as long as you let me love you. It's okay. I just…I felt like you should know. That I do."

Watanuki stares at him, feels his eyes go wide, his heart speed up. He just—he just goes and _says_ it like that, so plainly, so calmly, so…desperately, and _God._ "Doumeki—"

Doumeki blinks. "You're—you're angry, aren't you?" And Watanuki realizes he's frowning a little, confused and troubled and he's trembling, shaking, and he doesn't know why, but—he's _not_ angry—

"Doumeki!"

Doumeki grabs his hand, presses a kiss to the palm, and then clenches Watanuki's hand in his own, as though he'll never touch the boy again. "I'm sorry." Watanuki wonders how long it's been festering inside him, because even if Doumeki's a romantic, he's not one of those demonstrative ones, and he's so observant, always knows what Watanuki's thinking but Watanuki's so far from angry he can hardly define that particular emotion and Doumeki _didn't see_—how could he _not_ see?—and then he thinks that maybe it's his own fault, a little bit, but he doesn't even know how it can be and even if it was Doumeki would never blame Watanuki for Doumeki's feelings—

_I'm such an idiot— _

"Doumeki, stop it!"

Doumeki looks up at him, and his eyes are almost surprised but not quite. His hand, still clutching Watanuki's hard enough to make bones grind together, lowers, but he doesn't let go.

"God," Watanuki says, half-amused, half-irritated. "You cretin."

He twines his fingers around Doumeki's, tightens his grip, steps closer to Doumeki. This close, with inches separating them, their slight height difference is more obvious, Watanuki having to look up just barely to meet Doumeki's eyes.

Doumeki blinks at him, eyes truly wide now, glances down to their hands and back to Watanuki's face. His eyes soften and Watanuki realizes he's smiling a little and so Doumeki's smiling too. Doumeki's free hand touches Watanuki's cheek, cups Watanuki's face, and Watanuki leans into it, thinking of those final, startlingly clear moments of his life—of the dream—of Doumeki's forehead against his own, Doumeki's breath on his face, Doumeki's voice—

He leans forward and kisses him.

Doumeki's lips are warm and he responds eagerly and it's clumsy and awkward and their noses are in the way the scrape of teeth and tongue and it's perfect and _perfect_ and _oh…_

Watanuki's running out of air and Doumeki must be too, because they pull away at the same moment, lips still just millimeters apart, and they breathe the same air, gasping, and then Doumeki kisses him again, harder, slides the hand on Watanuki's cheek back to tangle fingers in his hair, tip his head back, deepen the kiss, and it's rough but not from lack of gentleness but more from lack of experience, and that's okay, it's _real_ and since it's not perfect it's more than perfect.

Watanuki wraps his free arm around Doumeki's neck, unwilling to let Doumeki's hand go, even though his palm is getting sweaty and Doumeki's skin is rough. Doumeki's fingers tighten on his own, warm and actually, those rough fingers are calloused _just right,_ and—it's _nice,_ it's really nice.

They pull away again, now pressed together like they are one thing, and Doumeki rests his head on Watanuki's shoulder. "I love you," he says softly. "More than anything in the world."

The words make Watanuki laugh, sliding his arm down to wrap around Doumeki's back. "You sound like a shoujo manga hero."

"I love you like a shoujo manga hero," Doumeki says wryly, and Watanuki can feel the slight smile curving on his neck. "Eternal devotion and everything."

"Stalkerish," Watanuki clarifies, and feels Doumeki's silent chuckles, and then a strange warm shivery feeling. "But I like you, too."

_Love_ is outside of his reach. He doesn't know—he's not certain like Doumeki is, but he feels something for him, and it burns, but in a good way. He's not sure, maybe it's love, maybe it's not, but it's a lot.

Doumeki pulls his head away from Watanuki's neck. "Yeah?"

"Yeah." He kisses Doumeki again, presses Doumeki's hand against his cheek hard. He likes kissing. Or maybe he likes kissing Doumeki. Though it's not because Doumeki's special or anything. It's just because Watanuki considers Doumeki worthy enough to be liked by him.

He pulls away and tips his face into Doumeki's hand, kissing his palm like Doumeki had minutes before. Because now it's Doumeki who's shaking, whose eyes are both hesitant and hopeful, and who understands that Watanuki is _never_ going to do that again, understands that he's _Watanuki_ and always will be, and that's fine with Doumeki. That's what Doumeki _wants_.

Everything has changed, nothing has changed, and it's okay. "How about dinner?" Doumeki asks.

Watanuki blinks. "Huh?"

"How about you make us dinner?"

_"Me?"_

"Do you see anyone else who can cook around here?"

Watanuki pushes Doumeki at shoulder length, but for some reason is still reluctant to let go of his hand, even they're clammy and finally he pries his insubordinate fingers away to poke at Doumeki's chest. "Honestly! Do you seriously _think_ I'll just make dinner for you just like that? It takes time and effort, you know, and just because I like you does _not_ mean—_hey! Get your damn fingers out of your ears!"_

Doumeki lifts an eyebrow, pinkies still in his ears, and smirks. "Please," he says, dryly.

Bastard. "Fine, you jerk."

"Stupid."

"Cretin."

"Idiot."

They exchange smiles, Doumeki not smirking (for once), but a real, sincere smile.

Maybe he doesn't remember them, doesn't remember what happened in that other life, in what still seems to be his real life, but—

Watanuki drags Doumeki into the kitchen, pushes him against the wall and tells him that if he moves _from that spot_ he will have a very large knife in his chest, and goes to the refrigerator. And from behind him Doumeki snorts but doesn't move and suddenly he knows—

Maybe he doesn't need to remember them, not really, not anymore, because he can make new memories. It can't replace the empty spot waking up left, can't replace a life he's forgotten, but there are other holes that need filling, holes that he can feel Doumeki sinking into, in his chest, holes that his family—_all of them_—fit into, just perfect little spaces, and maybe that little bit of empty space is okay, just to keep from getting too full.

It's not much, really it isn't, but—Doumeki is leaning against the wall, asking for inarizushi, and Watanuki just glares because _honestly,_ who does he think he is?—it's enough.


End file.
